They that trust on Him shall understand truth, And the faithful shall abide with Him in love; Because grace and mercy are to His chosen, And He will graciously visit His holy ones (iii. 9, cp. xv. 3). And, once more: Incorruption bringeth near to God (vi. 19). Of such passages Menzel says: “Who does not, in reading them, recall the Platonic passage _Jambl. ad Phaed._ pp. 63_c_, 69_c_?”[122] To quote Zeller again in his summing up of Plato’s philosophy: “As the soul in its true nature belongs to the world above the senses, and in that only can find a true and lasting existence, the possession of the good or happiness which forms the final goal of human effort can only be obtained by elevation into that higher world.... The true mission of man, therefore, lies in that escape from this world, which the ‘Theætetus,’ 176A, identifies with assimilation to the divine nature....”[123] (_c_) _The doctrine of the badness of the body._ In ix. 15, 16, it is said: For a corruptible body weigheth down the soul, And the earthly frame lieth heavy on the mind that is full of cares. And hardly do we divine the things that are on earth, And the things that are close at hand we find with labour; But the things that are in the heavens who ever yet traced out? Practically all commentators are agreed that verse 15 is based on a passage in Plato’s _Phaedo_ (81C), where the hindrance of the body is spoken of; the verbal similarities are too striking for this to be denied. The teaching is, moreover, in agreement with that found elsewhere in the writings of Plato: “The body ... is the grave and prison of the soul, which has received its irrational elements through combination with it, and is the source of all desires and all disturbances of intellectual activity”; thus Zeller sums up Plato’s teaching on the subject.[124] (_d_) _The creation of the world out of formless matter._ The term “formless matter” is a Platonic one; but this doctrine was taught by the Stoics as well as by Plato, so that we cannot say to which system the author of Wisdom was immediately indebted in writing these words: For Thine all-powerful hand, That created the world out of formless matter ... (xi. 17).